Towards vaccine equity: Should big pharma waive intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines?
Melody Okereke
Abstract
An increasing number of gene therapy applications necessitate the use of delivery methods that are risk-free, highly effective, highly targeted, and do not cause any threat to the recipient. Due to their modifiable nature with a variety of physicochemical characteristics, nanostructures for nucleic acid (NA) delivery provide an unparalleled possibility to overcome conventional delivery disadvantages. Because nanomaterials are easy to work with, they can be easily designed to interact with any biomolecules or moiety for selective targeting. The expression of DNA and RNA can be altered using NA therapeutic methods like DNA, mRNA, and siRNA, and this area of study has received a significant amount of research attention. Combining gene therapies with nanoscale delivery technologies has greatly increased the number of ways these molecules can be used in medicine and biology, such as for bioanalysis, vaccinations, replacing proteins, and turning genes off. This article provides an overview of NA delivery methods and technologies for molecular diagnostics and treatment for various disorders that urge gene-based therapy. It also describes the design concerns of NA nanodelivery, their amazing attributes, and the significance of these nanomaterials in biological systems and diseased cells and tissues. Further, it explains the limitations that NA nanodelivery poses along with the clinical and technical challenges that it has to overcome to extend this state-of-the-art delivery technology.